by Oliver Waters
The Matrix films depict a future dystopia in which oppressive super-intelligent machines have imprisoned human beings inside an entirely simulated world in order to exploit them as a power source. The human protagonists of the films – Neo and Trinity – lead a thrilling rebellion to free as many people as possible. It’s rather obvious why they are the ‘good guys’ and the machines are evil: imprisoning people in a virtual cage is wrong.
This is despite the fact that life in the Matrix actually seems more enjoyable than the alternative. Inside, you partake in the heady optimistic era of 1990s America. Outside it, you must endure the dusty remnants of the great civilisational war between humans and machines. There isn’t even any sunshine, on account of the humans having ‘scorched the sky’ to prevent the machines from accessing solar power. The only ‘free’ human city exists deep underground, where there’s very little entertainment unless scantily clad festival raves are your thing.
This is why the notorious character Cypher decides to betray humanity to the machines in exchange for a charmed life in the simulation. As he rationalises while eating a juicy virtual steak: ‘ignorance is bliss’. The film pushes us to think of Cypher as a deeply mistaken jerk. But why exactly? Why is being trapped in the Matrix wrong even if it is seemingly more pleasurable than living in reality? Because it is assumed that the people stuck inside it possess the inherently human trait of curiosity. Deep down, they want to know how the world really works. By being trapped in a fantasy world, this basic need is being frustrated, even if they don’t know it. Their individual potentials as self-aware beings are being cruelly inhibited, and justice demands that they be freed.
If you haven’t seen the Matrix films by now – where on Earth have you been?
One plausible place is on North Sentinel Island, a tiny member of the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal. It is remarkable for the fact that the people who live on it (the ‘Sentinelese’) are in almost zero contact with the rest of our global civilisation. There have been several attempts to connect with them over the centuries with varying degrees of failure, brought vividly to life in Adam Goodheart’s recent book The Last Island (2023). The Sentinelese exist today in total isolation – an arrangement enforced by the Indian government within whose sovereignty the island lies. Read more »